Table of Contents

List of illustrations; List of tables; Acknowledgments; Note on transliteration; Introduction; 1. Articulating a new nation; 2. Urdu and the nation; 3. The nation and its margins; 4. The case of Punjab, part I: elite efforts; 5. The case of Punjab, part II: popular culture; 6. History and local absence; 7. Bringing back the local past; 8. Speaking like a state: language planning; 9. Religion, nation, language; 10. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

This book examines Pakistan's troubled history by exploring the importance of culture to political legitimacy.

About the Author

Alyssa Ayres is Director for India and South Asia at McLarty Associates, Washington, DC. A cultural historian of modern South Asia, Alyssa Ayres has carried out research in India, Pakistan, and Indonesia. She has co-edited three books, including one forthcoming on power realignments between China, India, and the United States, as well as two volumes in Asia Society's India Briefing series.

Reviews

'… Ayres's engaging and thought provoking study is required reading for historians of South Asia interested in language politics. Moreover, as she stresses, India, Pakistan and Indonesia are not anomalous cases but are the outcomes of significant postcolonial movements … As such, their language politics cannot be ignored by scholars of language and the nation-state in general.' Javed Majeed, The American Historical Review